Chapter 8: People

Based on United Nations population forecasts, the world's population is now over
seven billion and growing.(The U.S. population is now over 312 million.)
A large percentage of the world's population is coming out of low-carbon-use poverty into the
high-use-carbon middle class. Failure to significantly reverse human CO2 emmissions, will result in
additional global-warming stress which inturn will have a severe negative impact on the majority
of species of this planet including our own as the devastating consequences of global warming continue
to unfold.

For example, seventy percent of the population lives in the world’s tropics and major climate
changes would directly impact most of them. In one example, the National Academy of Sciences
published, in their August 10, 2010, edition, a
study
linking illegal immigration from Mexico to global warming. Arguing that as global warming
causes dryer Mexican climate, arid and unproductive farmlands result in many farmers, farm
workers, and support workers migrating North. In fact, for the last decade, Northern Mexico
has suffered a drought.

The sad irony is that many Republicans while not believing in global warming,
are calling for the most severe illegal immigration measures todate, however,
failing to take meaningful actions to stop global warming only encourages,
counter-productively, illegal immigration.